Scratched off. Scratched off. Scratched off, starts Agnes wangale's story of travel. It was 6pm on fifteenth April 2010 and she had recently touched base at Toronto airplane terminal. As she filtered the landings board, her stomach beat and she understood that everything would not be alright – notwithstanding the swear up and down to she had made her mother.

Volcanic fiery remains from Iceland's had closed down Europe's air terminals for a week, leaving a great many travelers stranded over the globe. Among them was Agnes' mother, Sophia Atila Kafu, who was stuck at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam about 4,000 miles away. This would scarcely be outstanding were it not for the way that Sophia was 64, had never been outside Kenya, never been on a plane, never been inside an air terminal, talked no English (just Swahili and Luhya), conveyed just 25 euros and didn't have a working versatile.

When Agnes acknowledged something was awry, Sophia had as of now been stranded at Schiphol for 19 hours. She had with her some crisis contact points of interest at the same time, as such, no call had been made or got.

Understanding that her mother was not able to look for help, Agnes called the aerial shuttle, KLM, to approach on the off chance that they could hunt down her. The air transport let her know that there was an excess of mayham in the airplane terminal and that they would not have the capacity to find one specific individual. After a few hours, Agnes left the air terminal and squatted in a close-by lodging viewing the news in a state of misery. At the point when the following morning there was still no news, Agnes called the Kenyan Embassy in The Hague and was put through to a Kenyan attaché who guaranteed to drive down to Amsterdam the following morning if Sophia was not found by night.

Not able to rest, Agnes reached her companions and her partners at AIDS-Free World to request help. Before long, there were individuals from Boston, Toronto, New York and San Francisco dealing with an answer. At this point, Sophia had been stranded for almost 40 hours.

One of Agnes' companions, Paula Donovan, sent an email to her contacts titled "Earnestly require your systems administration help!" It argued: "Do you know any individual who's stranded in Amsterdam, or know any individual who knows any individual who knows anybody whose Facebook companions or Twitter supporters may be there?"

This email arrived in the inbox of an AIDS-Free World worker in San Francisco. Inside minutes it had arrived at an attorney in Washington who sent it to an alternate legal advisor in the same firm who then sent it to his father. It in this manner made a trip to a senior official at Delta Airlines (a KLM accomplice), and after that to an alternate Delta official in Atlanta. Inside two hours, the email pinged into the inbox of George Bougias, Delta's local administrator for client administration, as he was feasting with his wife. Right away, he thought about whether it was a trick alleged the number to check beyond any doubt.

Agnes addressed the call and frantically guaranteed him that her predicament was genuine. She sent him photographs of Sophia and, a couple of minutes after the fact, George was en route to the airplane terminal. He and six security operators started to inquiry the terminals, soon joined by a Jacqueline Witte brood who had gotten the message from a companion in New York, and her companion Fezekile Kuzwayo who could talk Swahili. Together, they brushed the terminals. It was nearing midnight and the group had very nearly completed their inquiry when they recognized two solitary figures in a disengaged region close to the airplane terminal gambling club. They strolled over and lifted a cover. Underneath was an African lady however at around 40 years of age she was so adolescent there was no option be Sophia. The gathering turned to the second bunk and looked underneath the cover.

"Mom Sophia?" asked Fezekile. At that point, in Swahili: "We've been sent here by your little girl."

Sophia grinned, uncovering a crevice in her teeth, much the same as the one in her photographs. Mother Sophia had at long last been found. Shaken however mitigated, she clarified that the other lady, a Congo local who talked English, had dealt with her. They had attempted to call Agnes yet hadn't had the capacity to achieve her number.

After four days, Sophia landed in Canada in time for Agnes' school graduation. Shockingly, the experience left her more positive about flying. Frightening as it seemed to be, the graciousness of outsiders taught her a paramount lesson: "You may have an issue," she said. "At the same time the length of other individuals know it, its not just yours any longe